


A Great Way to Make Friends

by ncfan



Series: The Golden Age of Konoha: The Founders [14]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, First Meetings, Gen, You might want to read the series notes first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-17 00:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3508034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've... never heard of you, actually."</p><p>"What?!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Great Way to Make Friends

The adults tended to ignore any children on the battlefield who happened to bear their enemy's crest. Of course, the children didn't always ignore the adults, and sometimes you'd find an adult corpse with a kunai in the small of its back. Hashirama didn't really blame them, though. As best as he could tell, it couldn't be easy to kill someone the same size as your own children, someone who could easily turn around and show a face like the ghost of your own child's.

Hashirama stayed with the other children of his clan when they fought, no matter who they fought. He stayed at Toka's side, or Minako's or Susumu's or Yori's—he fought the adults if they threatened his friends, or if he was put into battle against adults alone, but mostly he just stuck to taking on the kids. Kids didn't fight to kill as often, and Hashirama really liked it better that way.

(Beating someone into unconsciousness and _getting_ beat into unconsciousness was always a better experience than killing somebody or having a brush with death himself.)

The earth tremored and pulsed beneath his feet as he ran, dodging bushes and fallen boughs and whatever else detritus happened to be in his path. The job of the Senju kids this day was a simple one: set fire to the rice paddy the Uchiha had begun to tend to for the season. The campsite itself would be too heavily guarded for an assault, Hideyoshi-sama said, and besides, attacking a clan's home directly was considered dishonorable even by the least reputable of clans.

 _The first thing I ever did with Mokuton was bring a ruined rice paddy back to life,_ Hashirama thought as he adjusted the small drum of oil on his back. His lips quirked in a rueful kind of half-smile. _This is kind of crazy._

As they neared the paddy, it became clear that it hadn't exactly been left unguarded—there was the telltale sound of brush and branches cracking underfoot, sparks of chakra bursting at the edges of Hashirama's conscious mind. He exchanged a long look with Toka. She fell into step behind him and took the oil drum off his back. Nothing really needed to be said there.

… _I hope Tobirama's okay back at the camp._ Hashirama had promised the younger boy that he'd start showing him how to throw shuriken if he could hit the bull's-eye on a target five times in a row with kunai. Tobirama had watched him leave with eyes that were already starting to grow shuttered and glassy, despite his young age and the fact that he'd been with the clan for less than a year. _I don't think he likes being left alone there._

… _Of course, I can't even tell how much he likes being around_ me, _so I don't know…_

To his surprise (though maybe he shouldn't have been surprised), the rice paddy was being guarded by children.

There was a line of kids all in a row, standing between the Senju team and the rice paddy. There were six (no, seven; there was a really tiny one hiding behind somebody else) children, armed with knives and clubs. Most of them looked around seven years old or so. There was one who looked about ten, and the oldest one was a boy who looked around Hashirama's age, with unruly hair and glaring eyes. Compared to the rest, Hashirama thought this boy looked like the only one really willing to put up a fight. _Then again,_ he mused with a grimace, _the rest of 'em are so puny they probably don't even know how to fight._

_This is ridiculous._

"Oh, _great_ ," Hashirama heard Susumu mutter. "The adults sent their kids out to play."

"At least it's not fire-spitting adults," Minako murmured, before nocking an arrow on her bow and shouting, "Clear out if you don't wanna be charcoal!"

She had barely let her arrow fly when the oldest Uchiha boy made a series of hand signs so fast that no one would be able to tell what they were later, and spat a fireball right at the Senju team.

The next few seconds were lost in a haze of flame, smoke and fear. Flames caught on the dry grass, on the trees. Smoke clogged the air in a reeking gray cloud. Hashirama's heart pounded in his throat as he cast his gaze around. Toka had had the oil drum last; if it had caught on fire while she was still holding it, she was done for. Never mind that Hashirama hadn't heard anyone screaming—Toka was just the sort not to scream even if she _was_ on fire.

When the smoke cleared, Hashirama saw to his relief that his teammates were all present and accounted for, including Toka. Minako and Daiki both looked a little singed, but the former was already pulling another arrow from her quiver, shaking her short hair out of her face as she did so.

"Hey, guys," Hashirama said to them, a slightly giddy smile starting to stretch across his lips. "I'll distract this one; you guys just keep on doing…" He waved a hand absently, barely tearing his gaze away from the Uchiha boy's face.

Said boy barreled towards Hashirama's teammates as they started for the paddy, eyes wheeling red. Hashirama jumped in between him and them, even as the smaller Uchiha kids sprang up to defend the rice paddy. "Hey!" Hashirama exclaimed. "What about me?!"

The other boy raised an eyebrow. "What _about_ you?" Up close, Hashirama could see that the boy had bags under his eyes. _Is he tired? Oh, God, please tell me he's tired. Please tell me he's a one-trick pony and that Sharingan's just for show._

"Don't count me out! I—oww!"

Hashirama jumped back, clutching his now bloody nose incredulously. "You don't fight fair!" he accused the other boy indignantly.

To this, the Uchiha boy only smirked. "We're shinobi. Fighting fair is for the weak."

Hashirama felt a laugh bubble up in his throat, in spite of the pain radiating from his possibly broken nose and his previous indignation. He'd rarely ever heard it put like that. "In that case, how about I do _this_?"

A blunted spike of wood sprung up from the earth. It would have caught the Uchiha boy under his chin—not hard enough or fast enough to kill him (Hashirama had never liked using Mokuton to actually kill his opponents; it felt wrong, somehow), but enough to knock him out for a while—but the boy spotted it before that could happen. He staggered backwards, tottering on his feet and staring disbelievingly at the spike of wood.

When he met Hashirama's gaze, the smirk had died off his lips. "So you're the Mokuton kid," he muttered. The three tomoe of the Sharingan wheeled furiously against their red fields. "Senju Hashirama." To Hashirama's shock, the other boy actually nodded his head to him. Not the shallow nod of someone giving the barest amount of politeness necessary for an introduction, but one of what appeared to be genuine respect. "My name is Uchiha Madara."

"Umm…" Hashirama smiled nervously and nodded back to him, before rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "…Thanks. I've… never heard of you, actually."

" _What?!_ " And just like that, Madara's equanimity evaporated. His face flushed a furious dark red. "What do you mean, you've never heard of me?!"

"Hey, it's not a big deal! We're both plenty young; you've got years to build up your reputation!"

Madara snarled; there would be no placating him, it seemed. "Shut up and fight."

The song of steel against steel, kunai against kunai, to be occasionally punctuated by a tanto or a wakizashi, or hand signs and jutsu. Madara was really good with Fire jutsu, Hashirama noticed, able to control the flames enough to do pinpoint attacks that wouldn't risk the paddy—either he'd had formal training or was just a really quick study off the older nin of his clan. _Though I suppose that with the Sharingan he wouldn't need to see the jutsu performed but once_.

He wasn't always very fast, though. Hashirama caught the other boy with a solid punch or kick on more than one occasion (at least Hashirama wouldn't be the only one going home with bruises), and whenever he did, he could feel bone beneath Madara's cloak. _The last winter was hard on everybody, wasn't it? Small wonder the Uchiha clan didn't leave their rice paddy unprotected, if this is the state of their children. You'd think they'd have gotten some adults to defend it, though!_

"You'll remember my name when I'm through with you," Madara promised. Despite the fact that Hashirama had literally just landed a solid kick on Madara's chest, he didn't seem winded at all. Even discounting the Sharingan, his eyes burned with an almost feverish light.

Hashirama shot a quizzical look at him. "You're taking this very personally, you know. Look, people just know who I am because I've got fancy jutsu nobody else has got. There was a bit of a commotion in my clan in the beginning, but nowadays I'm just another kid to most of them. I just get sent out to fight more often. You've got years to—"

"Hey, Hashirama, we're done here!"

Toka and the rest were waving to him; a thin spire of smoke was starting to rise from the rice paddy, much to the distress of the younger Uchiha kids. Hashirama flashed a brief grin at Madara and started to run off with the rest of his group. "See you around! I'll definitely try to remember your name from now on!"

-0-0-0-

Madara barely even heard Hashirama's parting words, though the memory would come back to him later and cling to his mind like a leech. "Put that fire out, before it gets to the rest of the paddy!" he shouted at his teammates as he rushed back towards them.

The Senju had dumped the oil directly on the rice stalks, bypassing the problem of the standing water—though an oil fire big enough would barely feel water anyways.

"How?" Izuna cried desperately. "Water's no good for oil fires!"

"Somebody go get help! The rest of you, start getting dirt to smother the fire!"

Kimiko and Chinatsu ran off for the camp. The rest started getting clods of dirt to throw on the fire. They got the fire put out eventually (Kimiko and Chinatsu came back with nearly a dozen more kids), but not until after a sizable chunk of the paddy had been either burned beyond use or trampled underfoot by the 'firefighters.'

Madara stared at the paddy, feeling a cold weight settle in his stomach. The acrid smells of oil and smoke mingled in the air, making his eyes water. Well, there went a quarter of the Uchiha's rice crop for the year. The head would be furious, especially with Madara, who had been put in charge of the paddy's defenders during this battle. Uchiha Akihiro grew less tolerant of failure with each passing year.

_I suppose I'll be lucky if he just decides to skin me and use my hide as a flag._

As if she could hear his thoughts, little Kimiko looked up at him sympathetically. "I don't think Grandfather will be too mad at you."

He stared at her, surprised in spite of himself. As was the way with most young girls, Kimiko was extremely shy; she usually fell silent in the presence of anyone much older than herself (Though Madara didn't really see how four and a half years qualified him as 'much older'). She quailed a little under his gaze, but went on, "I heard Grandfather talking about how he couldn't spare as many men as he wanted to help us."

"Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to matter very much to the head," Madara said quietly. He went to sit down by Izuna, staring discontentedly at the route the Senju had taken to escape. He didn't suppose there was still time to pursue them; they'd lost so much time putting the fire out that the Senju were probably back with their own clan by now. Madara was confident in his abilities, but even he didn't think he could take on who-even-knows-how-many Senju by himself.

"Are you alright?" Izuna asked him, putting a hand on his arm.

Madara waved him off absently. "I'm fine. I'm just… thinking."

Before today, he'd half-thought the existence of a Senju boy reputed with the ability to manipulate plant life itself to be just a rumor. He heard the older boys talking about Senju Hashirama and assumed they were just trying to scare each other or make up tall tales to impress girls. But apparently… He was real.

And he was a bit… awkward. Not really what Madara had expected at all. All the same, though, Madara found himself hoping he would have the chance to fight Hashirama again.

-0-0-0-

Meanwhile, back at the camp, Hashirama found Tobirama sitting by the campfire outside of the tent they shared with the other kids, fiddling with a kunai. Tobirama stared wide-eyed at Hashirama's nose, bruised and bloodied, nostrils stuffed cotton balls (to Hashirama's great chagrin, Tadao had confirmed that his nose was indeed broken), but Hashirama just smiled sheepishly and said, "Ahh, don't worry about me. I'm a fast healer."

Tobirama looked at him skeptically, but replied, "If you say so."

Hashirama stared over the flames and the sparks rising into the evening sky. A grin slowly unfurled over his face.

"I met an interesting kid today."


End file.
